Meteor Showers
by theBrillianceofNight
Summary: Because, you see, when you hear fire, you think smoke, flames. We think of falling rocks and salamanders. Semi-collab with Quicquidlibet. Check inside for a more thorough explanation.
1. Deadly Bacon

So Quicquidlibet and I decided that we wanted to do a piece where we both take the same prompt and the same fandom, use our own preferred character, and write a one shot to correspond with each other. Hers is called "Born of Fire". I suggest you check it out to see just how different/alike strange minds can be.

So here's the first of many:

"Bacon" and "Complication".

I do not own DeathNote. But I do own bacon and a complicated mind.

* * *

><p>I never realized that bacon could be deadly.<p>

But once I took into consideration that bacon contained bacteria and a fat-laden nutritional content, both of which could potentially lead to disease and death, bacon just wasn't worth eating anymore.

Mello, on the other hand, liked the stuff.

Once we reached the hallmark of sixteen years of age, we were allowed to move into the larger rooms on the upper levels of our dwelling. These rooms were like apartments, with a kitchen, a bathroom, and a lounge area. I often spent weeks without ever having to leave my room.

And for whatever reason, Mello insisted on cooking bacon in my kitchen.

The first time he ranted about technology and his roommate.

The second, about marshmallows.

The third, it was about mud and penguins.

The fourth, about traffic signs.

By the eleventh time, he had a pack of the meat in my refrigerator.

The fifteenth, his frying pan had its own place in my cupboards.

The eighteenth time, he offered to share. I didn't reply.

The nineteenth and twentieth times he was silent.

He didn't come back for a twenty-first time.

This, of course, posed a problem.

His frying pans and bacon were still occupying my storage space.

I finally ventured over to his room with the intent to ask him to remove his property. Instead, I stumbled upon him singing and cooking bacon on his own stovetop.

Upon seeing me, he began to rant about bags and threw whatever he could get his hands on at me.

I barely dodged a faceful of sizzling bacon and frying pan.

Then he stormed into the bathroom, ranting about wool.

What a complicated person.

Who liked deadly food.


	2. Good Days

Second Prompt: "Milk" and "Interval"

* * *

><p>It was a strange day when Mello was satisfied and did not complain about anything. It happened every once in a while, from time to time, that things would just be going his way, he had a large enough store of chocolate, and he'd be content.<p>

No, it was weird when Mello was happy, even when he saw me.

And the strangest days, where something apocalyptic was going to happen, those days were hallmarked by the occasion that he _smiled_ at me, or said something even indirectly nice about me.

One of these times was on his birthday. He'd gotten so much chocolate, L had just left after giving a favorable comment to him, and he'd beaten me academically for once.

He grinned at me and said, "Your hair is white. It looks like milk. Milk goes into milk chocolate. I like chocolate."

Matt passed by and remarked, "Yes, we know you like chocolate," before turning back to his video game.

I shrugged and handed him his birthday present. It was a book on the science behind confection making.

He grinned even wider and said, "You know, milk hair, you're not so bad after all."

"The same to you," I nodded, and I walked away.

I thought very little of it in the next few weeks—it wasn't that big of a deal. He and I had never been on good terms because of his need to be superior, but we were friends, loosely.

Eight months pass, and it's my birthday. I make very little fuss about it and stay locked up in my room the whole day. I leave once, to use the bathroom, and when I come back, there's a package lying on the bed.

It's a puzzle, and when I finish it, it gives me instructions to open up the top drawer of my dresser.

Sitting in the drawer is a bar of candy.

Milk chocolate.

I suppose that Mello can be reasonable every once in a while.

I'm glad.

* * *

><p>AN: Now, I know it seems like Near's got something for Mello, but I'm just trying to hold true to the canon, where Mello dislikes Near but Near doesn't mind him, even likes him. Friendly-like, of course. So Near wants to be Mello's friend, so he's glad when Mello isn't an ass to him.

Yerp.


	3. Two o'clock

Here's the next one!

"We're gonna go bowling tomorrow."

* * *

><p>"WHAT. THE. FUCK?" Mello roared as soon as he stepped through the door, letting dim yellow light spill into the darkness of the room.<p>

"What?" Matt yawned. I glanced at the digital clock that read 2:00 in cheerful green light. Squinting, I realized the corner of the display read "A.M."

"Son of a bitch," Matt groaned upon seeing Mello's expression.

"I do all that work and that _imbecile_ solves the case because he just _happened_ to stumble across that _one_ phrase BEFORE I COULD GET THERE!" he raged. "I FUCKING HATE THIS PLACE!"

"Calm down and stop being so melodramatic," Matt remarked, handing Mello a chocolate bar. "…Gonna have to go shopping tomorrow after the boating trip," he mumbled to himself, taking stock of his dwindling supply of confection.

"Today," I corrected.

Matt looked at the clock and cursed again. "It's two in the fucking morning, damn it, go to sleep and bitch about it tomorrow instead, okay?"

"NOT OKAY," his roommate bellowed. "And what the fuck is _he_," he pointed at me, "doing here?"

"Who?" Matt groused.

"_Him_," Mello spat murderously.

Matt's eyes passed over me twice before they focused, then he swore and grabbed his chest.

"Shit, when did you get there?" he wheezed.

"I was investigating," I answered simply. "Maybe I'll investigate further tomorrow."

"Today," Matt corrected.

"No, today we're boating. Tomorrow," I insisted.

"It's that FUCKING WORD AGAIN!" Mello snarled.

"Boating?"

"No, _bowling_, damn it. The fucking key to the whole thing was that the girl said, 'We're gonna go bowling tomorrow,' and the only reason that the moron got it before me was because HE WANTED TO STARE AT HER ASS!" Mello roared before storming into the bathroom.

I blinked a few times before turning to Matt.

"Will you sit next to me when we go boating?"

"Sure, but I think I want to go bowling tomorrow."

"Today."

"Nah, bowling tomorrow."

We both grimaced at the sound of head meeting wall.

* * *

><p>AN: I just realized that Mello seems to like storming into bathrooms. Interesting.


	4. Home for the Holidays

So, due to my indecision and Quicquidlibet's advice, you are getting three-for-one this chapter. Enjoy!

Warning: Contains three boyxboy kisses. No likey, then no reading. Please.

"Mistletoe"

"Pez Dispenser"

* * *

><p>I'm not one to go around blaming people. On the off chance that I screw up, I'll take full responsibility for it. It's pointless to push off the blame on someone else, especially when the truth will come out anyway.<p>

But I swear. NOT MY FAULT. How was I supposed to know that that robot wasn't, in fact, a robot, but a candy dispenser?

…And that this certain candy dispenser was altered to dispense chocolate?

…And that it was sitting right under a sample of the poisonous white-berried member of the holly family?

…And that Mello would go running for it at the same time?

It's all that Matt's fault.

He was laughing. I saw it with my own eyes.

…And why in the world would they make people kiss because they happened to stumble underneath a poisonous plant?

…And anyway, Mello is much better suited with Matt.

…And I never said anything.

* * *

><p>Wammy House should ban holiday celebrations. Matt and Mello goaded me into attending one in their room. They had alcohol. You really think they would have learned from the vodka incident.<p>

But either way, I brought gifts for both of them. A newly released game for Matt and a candy dispenser for Mello. I placed them next to each other; they were both rather small packages. Matt was sitting right by it, and Mello raced to open his present, eyes lit up in childish glee.

But it seemed as though they both had forgotten about their decorations, and the rather inconvenient placement of a certain sprig of festive foliage.

They looked at me, seeing if I'd noticed. I just looked right on back.

Matt grimaced, then shrugged.

"Aw hell, it's the holidays."

Needless to say, Mello refused to look at either of us afterwards, Matt was too nonchalant to really care, and I stayed seated on the floor, playing with the new puzzle they had gotten me.

Then Mello started yelling.

He hasn't stopped.

Wammy House should ban holiday celebrations.

* * *

><p>Mello seems the only one who is uncomfortable at the moment. I don't know why he would be. I even offered him a piece of candy from the little dispenser I got. It looks like a robot, which I find humorous. When he refused to accept it, I turned and offered one to Matt, who shrugged and took it.<p>

Of course, perhaps Mello refuses to look at us because we're still sitting under a sprig of the plant they've vested so much holiday significance in.

Mistletoe. It's poisonous, white berried, but not much to look at.

But hey, we fulfilled the requirements, and we're comfortable enough as we are. Matt's playing his video games and I'm fiddling with my new candy dispenser. We just can't be bothered to move, and so what?

If Mello's uncomfortable, he can leave.

What a strange, melodramatic guy.

* * *

><p>AN: As far as I know, I don't believe that Near, Mello, and Matt are gay. I think that Matt and Near just don't care all that much. But you never know. My characters tend to gain lives of their own, and as they are past sixteen (and seem to be the same age), and are still living in Wammy House, I suppose this isn't canon.


	5. Rainy Days

And here's another!

"Eggplant"

"Word"

"Imaginative"

* * *

><p>I'm imaginative. It's one of the things that set me apart most from Matt and Mello: my spatial and conceptual abilities are unrivaled. So perhaps it is for this reason that I always win at Pictionary, Hangman, "find the pattern" type games, and solving Sherlock Holmes-esque mysteries.<p>

Mello and Matt are always losing in Hangman because I manage to find the correct words on the first try, long before they even have a clue as to what the phrase can be.

It's only been upon one occasion that Matt won. He guessed the term, "scanning tree", mostly because of his superior technical knowledge and my ignorance that those two words could be used together.

Mello won once as well, because he was more interested in matters of food than I.

It was the word, "eggplant".

He crowed in triumph, and even my successive wins, of the words "equestrian", "receding", and "prodigious" did little to dull his grin.

…Rainy days are seldom boring when you're with two other geniuses, even if you are the most imaginative of the set.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry for the short length, but it's difficult for me to make really long entries unless I have a lot of inspiration.

...And if you're looking for length, look at Quicquidlibet's "Born of Fire". It's a semi-collab (as in we use the same prompts), and hers tend to be longer than mine.

Yerp! Review if you like!


	6. Preferences

Prompt: "Horseradish coleslaw"

* * *

><p>There are few foods I dislike. Among them are bacon, vodka, and coleslaw.<p>

Horseradish coleslaw, to be exact.

It all started because of Mello, as do most interesting things in our sphere of Wammy House.

To make a long story short, there are few people I dislike. Mello is not one of them, but he is perilously close to becoming a new addition to the short list.

Also, there is a single color I very much like, and that is white.

And there is a single state which I enjoy my hair to be.

And that is clean.

* * *

><p>AN: ...Sorry about length, but I like this short. It makes it more memorable, at least to me. Yerp.


	7. Intentions

Prompt: "Apple"

"Traveling"

* * *

><p>Humans would not survive without opposable thumbs. Other than the varying levels of intelligence which allow us to employ our thumbs, humans have little to set us apart from animals, physically.<p>

We couldn't make hammers, hold hammers, use hammers, pick up apples, play video games, put together puzzles… Nor would we be able to travel peacefully, as Matt demonstrated for us.

Matt may have been the culprit, but as always, Mello was the vehicle. Upon this particular occasion, he'd superglued Matt's thumbs to his index fingers to keep him off of his games.

Of course, it also meant that Matt could not carry luggage, take on or off his jacket, and he could not buy nor open chocolate for Mello.

And Mello would rather put his aorta in the hands of an axe-inclined mass murderer than allow me to touch his chocolate.

Thus, in the middle of a bustling airport, Matt had to explain the situation to a blushing young lady.

In Spanish.

He was surprisingly fluent, especially considering that he seemed to be fluent in French as well, and Mello looked at him strangely the whole time. Matt did a remarkable job of explaining the situation precisely and yet making it so that the girl had to be sympathetic to his case.

The lady finally went and bought the chocolate for Matt, and even opened it before giving it to him so that he could, in turn, hand it to Mello. The lady nodded at his thanks before muttering something to him and then running off to her friends.

Matt did a valiant job of suppressing his facial expressions, but his face still turned rather red.

"What did she say?" Mello demanded.

"She said, 'Su novio es precioso'," Matt answered truthfully.

Mello fell silent. "…What did she say?"

Matt sighed. "She asked me if I like apples."

"Oh. That's creepy," Mello remarked.

You have no idea, Mello. I'm pretty sure there are few things creepier than a girl's instinctive gaydar and a young female obsession for seeing good looking males coupled up.

* * *

><p>AN: Now, just to make sure you all know, 'Su novio es precioso' actually means 'Your boyfriend is precious/adorable/cute'.

Yerp.


	8. Disproved

To fully understand what I refer to here, you'll have to look up Quicquidlibet's "Born of Fire". (Tee hee, now you HAVE to go look at it...)

But anyway, enjoy!

Prompt 8: "constriction" and "school"

* * *

><p>I've never considered my knowledge to be a hindrance. I've always seen it as an advantage.<p>

Until now.

And, of course, because of Mello.

Not long after Matt sent the prank text, Mello arrived home and started yelling, about how it wasn't even possible to fuck a duck.

And then my brain decided to jump in and explain how, yes, it was possible, and exactly how. Accompanied by vivid illustrations.

Oh, but then Mello started listing off more "possibilities", and for every single answer of "that's impossible" by Matt, my imagination proceeded to supply how it was, indeed, plausible.

So I locked myself in my room. That worked until we had to go to Lessons.

And Lessons is pretty much a forced Study Hall where we learn whatever we like.

And my creativity decided to instruct me further in the methods of disproving former impossibilities.

So I've constricted my mind from wandering past matters of numbers and calculations.

"No, Mello, it's not possible to do that to a calculus textbook, and why would we have calculus textbook during Near's birthday?"

"Wait, that was on Near's birthday? _WHAT?_ DON'T TELL ME THAT I TRIED TO DO _HIM_!"

…

Fuck.


	9. Only For You

Prompt 9: "Lipstick" and "Only"

* * *

><p>"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?" Mello roars at 4 o'clock A.M.<p>

"Huh?" Matt groans.

"_That_!" Mello answers intelligently.

Matt takes his sweet time in rolling out from under the covers and stumbles over like a drunken zombie.

"What is it?" he mumbles, still half asleep.

"That!"

Mello jabs viciously at a dark blue cylinder, squat, about a finger long and with a gold band running around at about its center.

"I dunno. Pick it up and read the label," Matt suggests.

Mello looks at the circular label he finds stuck to one end of the tube, then he tosses it at Matt, who groggily manages to hit it midair and send it rolling towards me.

"GAH!" Mello yells, acting as though the tube contains the plague.

I pick it up and read. It's a lipstick tube, called "Only For You". I open it up. It's a garish red. Matt's female friend probably left it.

Mello walks over to a bed and collapses onto it. He lifts an eyebrow at seeing me in the corner, but refrains from saying anything, finally used to it.

"Get off my bed," Matt grumbles at seeing Mello sprawled across it.

"Nah, Mattie, you can sleep on my bed," Mello drawls out.

"What about the lipstick?" I inquire.

"No doubt one of Mattie's girlfriends," Mello snickers.

"Shut up, Mels," Matt mumbles, exhausted. A few moments later, Mello starts snoring. "Really, Mels?" Matt slurs before he, too, breathes deeply and evenly.

Later, after the sun has risen, I wake to Mello roaring again about lipstick.

I look at him and realize why; he's got a mustache and a unibrow in that same awful shade of vermillion.

He curses Matt's ancestors and my descendants to the same fate, and finally settles with a huff until Matt winks conspiratorily at me and corrects Mello.

"Nah, Mels, it's 'Only For You', you know."

Mello shouts and slams the bathroom door behind him, loud enough to disturb my card tower.

Matt smiles apologetically.

And I smile back, knowing Mello's rants are something special, that only we get to see and witness fully. And laugh at.

But then I lean back against the wall and look at the ceiling.

"For future reference, Matt, Mello's rants and curses will be directed away from me unless I am, indeed, the culprit, because otherwise, the whining is reserved 'Only For You'."

Matt stares at me.

"Did you just crack a joke?"

We spend the rest of the day like that.

Mello yelling in the bathroom, me sitting in the corner and rebuilding my card tower, and Matt gaping with his mouth flopping open like a fish.

All because of a tube of lipstick.

* * *

><p>AN: It's official. Mello must store chocolate in his bathroom.

...How unsanitary.

...You would think he'd have learned from Near and bacon...


	10. On the Inside

Prompt 10: "Reticent" and "Neanderthal"

* * *

><p>You'd think that a primitive form of humans as we see them today would not be very close-lipped. You'd think they'd be inane, superficial, total air-heads. Don't deny it.<p>

However, that is how many of the current species are. Just check in your local high school. The bubble-gum gnawing, gossiping, chatty females _and_ males of such a type will spill all, given the proper prompting. Whether what they have to say is of any use or not is for later discernment, but loose-lipped is something I would not expect a Neanderthal to be.

I would think that a Neanderthal would be extremely tight-lipped, guarding all secrets of hunting grounds and other such information as closely as a lion guards its water hole in the middle of a drought.

Neanderthals are more intelligent than they would seem.

A bit like Mello, perhaps.

Past his somewhat unsavory exterior, loud blustering talk, and inability to suppress his emotions and thus gain an objective view of a situation, he has motivation that far exceeds that of Matt's and sometimes mine. His social skills surpass mine by extremes and are superior to Matt's as well.

Mello does not have the technical skill that Matt and I have, but he has a gift for being able to take any situation and turn it to his own advantage.

He is also a secretive little child. Bastard.

Perhaps he is as reticent as the Neanderthals, or it is the unapparent intelligence that makes him like them.

Or perhaps it is his anger that makes him most like the Neanderthals.

"_MATT_!"

…Let's hope that Matt can outrun a Neanderthal.


	11. How It Works

Prompt 11: "Badminton" and "Deception"

* * *

><p>I'm not one for sports. All the activity I require is easily conducted within the confines of my skull and my hands.<p>

But it's deceptive, how much intelligence can actually be involved in the sports many people like to play.

Take badminton, for example. You use a racket to whack a birdie over a net. Big deal.

What people don't realize is the physics. The angles, the inertia, all these different factors serve to make the sport scientific.

Then there are those players who completely bypass the science and go straight to it, relying on "instinct" and what "feels right".

And then there are Mello and Matt.

Matt doesn't even bother. He stands there, and if the birdie hits him in the face, so what? He's not going to go pick it up, and he's got the goggles for a reason.

But Mello tries so hard to replicate what the pros do. He tries to emanate that natural talent with all these maneuvers that are deceptively difficult. And he fails miserably.

Then I'll take the racket and use science for the perfect angle, the ideal speed, and come out with a beautiful rally and a flawless smash. Mello will look at me angrily.

"Use the science," I'd say about what is deceptively easy.

"Yeah, sure, sheep."

"Hey now, play nice."

Like how we somehow seem exactly balanced, in tune.

Deceptively simple.

Deceptively complex.

Like badminton.


	12. Physics

Prompt 12: "Divided" and "Shell"

* * *

><p>It's interesting how you can find mathematical patterns in nature. There's the Fibonacci sequence of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on, and that's found in the sunflower centers in the arrangement of seeds. In asparagus, the arrangement of the 'petals' of the heads.<p>

And there's the golden ratio, which you can find in snail shells and some types of seashells.

We were at the seaside, and I was collecting shells to decorate a sand castle. It was massive, almost large enough to walk in and with a moat large enough that you could not access the castle without getting soaked up to the waist. I had packed the sand down in such a way that it would not crumble, using physics to aid my undertaking.

It was nearly perfect but for the few snail shells I was about to add.

It would have been amazing.

Then Matt ran through the archway I'd carved in.

Then Mello ran straight through, smashing the castle smack dab in the center.

I now had two divided halves of a castle.

I enjoyed burying Matt and Mello separately.

The traps worked as they should have and were perfectly concealed as well.

The traps also succeeded in dumping a great quantity of sand into their swim trunks.

They were furiously angry, and for once, were in agreement as they struggled to escape.

I laughed, because they forgot about the suction powers of wet sand, especially on cloth that was also weighted down by more wet sand.

The pictures were memorable.

And quickly censored.


	13. You

Prompt 13: "Limit" and "United"

* * *

><p>You're an idiot.<p>

A bloody fucking idiot.

You know that?

Sometimes I don't even know why I bother.

You're a complete hypocrite, and the difference between you and I is that I admit it, while you somehow have convinced yourself that you're infallible, that you're God himself or something.

You're bloody incapable of understanding simple logic and you lack common sense, but the kicker is that no one else seems to realize. You solve all of the big, convoluted, "impossible" cases, but you don't know the meaning of "compromise" or "listen" and yet no one with authority bothers to correct you.

You—I should just put you out of your blissful ignorance because there's no bloody way you'll be able to survive in the real world.

And just when I'm sure it isn't possible, you push the limits and do something even more incredibly reckless and stupid.

I'm scared for your future, because I'm sure you'll never succeed with the way you're going. You've got so much potential, but you just care so little that one day, you'll realize a single of your more insignificant mistakes and fucking jump off a bridge because it seems like a good idea in the one second you consider it.

But I know I don't really hate you.

I've heard it's impossible to express something without ever having experience it before yourself, but that's a lie.

Because I know what real hate is like, even having never experienced it.

Hate isn't ignoring someone, pretending they don't exist even as you wish pain upon them every second, because that treatment is too different, too special for someone you truly hate.

You treat someone you really hate with the same politeness you greet acquaintances or strangers with. You acknowledge them, but it never goes any further, because the silent treatment or hurting their feelings is special treatment.

Pure, unadulterated hate is treating someone like a complete stranger even as you are irreversibly connected, tied. Even though every second you spend treating them as "no one special" tugs in vain at the threads that unite you.

True hatred isn't pretending the person doesn't exist—it's in convincing yourself that the bonds don't exist, that they never existed.

True hatred is indifference as what happens, whether good or bad.

And I can't do that with you.

Because I know I love you. You're my brother, or as good as.

But sometimes, I hate you, not to the point of ignoring you, because that's just anger, just irritation.

No, sometimes I want it to be that I never met you, that you were still just "that kid", still just "number two", still just another meaningless, insignificant face.

And that scares me.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry if that was unnecessarily dark. I didn't label this collection as "humor", thought. I labeled it as "friendship", and sometimes hatred is a part of friendship. Love can't exist without it, after all.

Anyway, my brother is an idiot, and he was just being especially stupid, even for him, and this is what came out of the aggravation and the fearsome thought that I'm feeling less aggravated as time goes on and more indifferent.

Anyway, stay tuned for more!


	14. Enchantment

Prompt 14: Winterland/Temperature

* * *

><p>I used to love snow.<p>

I still notice the beauty, and the wonder, the clean, fresh appearance of a white, unbroken landscape. The sun sparkles off of it all and the pond nearby is one large, reflective sheet of crystal. The frosted tree branches listen like glass sculptures and icicles refract light into bright geometric patterns.

Paths glisten with the sheen of ice, and everything is fresh. Clean. Bright. New. The air is crisp and refreshing, and kids go and play, bundled up in parkas and scarves, hats and mittens, boots and earmuffs, building snowmen while looking like snowmen themselves. The sky is a pale blue and the sun shines, pale but bright.

Then storm clouds roll in and everything goes wrong.

The eggnog was too potent, the cookies too filling, and the glassy streets reflect glassy eyes. The sun can't shine through the heavy cloud cover and it's abruptly frigid.

The warmth never comes back. The comfort of warm blankets, pillow-like arms that wrap around and nestle you close, safe, secure—all gone. Forever.

The temperature and visibility drop as formerly fluffy snowflakes become six-edged knives. The wind gains a blade of ice and the winter wonderland turns into a world of nightmares.

And then the nightmare ends. People surround you, wonder, try to care, but they can never fill the gap.

Snow is no magical blanket. It's a deceiver, covering all of the potholes and dips, all the burrows and dens, all the ice and thorns, the footfalls and quagmires, all uniform so you can barely tell up from down.

The wind shrieks, screams, and you see others go out and play in the snow that suffocates with twinkles in its countless eyes, all watching for you to take a misstep so it can swallow you up and leave no trace.

And this is all while the snow is fresh.

Snow is less harmful when it's slushy. Dirty. Brown and churned. Because then it loses its enchantment, the spell lifts up its hold for the shortest second.

Then children come out to construct deformed figures out of snow. Demented, deranged smiles, crooked postures and bulbous abdomens. Icy trees grabbing, clawing, the air nipping at your nose. Biting. Gnawing. Sucking away the residual warmth, never to give it back.

Cold sun, gray skies that linger long into the spring season.

All summer you dread the return of snow.

And when it comes you stay far away.

Because if you get too close, it calls out to you. Tempts. Entices. Seduces. Promises with honeyed words and crystal jewels. Threatens to swallow you up, to make everything go away, and then the white turns into a warm red that comforts, or so it seems, until someone comes along and yanks you out, and you're complacent. Drained. And you finally realized when you hit real warmth that the snow is a devious vampire. Sly. Taking away the warmth.

And when you find yourself distancing yourself, you go back for one more taste, one more lick, and you barely get out alive from the thing that took away the warmth, that threatens to steal away the little that is left.

Winks at you, promising fresh starts and new beginnings even as it covers over the impure, red-stained ice, littered with chunks of metal, life snatched away because snow is a warmth-hungry creature, always employing the old traps and coincidence to make its meals.

The shriek of metal crumpling, glassy pavement and glassy eyes, cloudy red ice and crystals of a substance as deadly as poison but seeming so much more innocent. Soft. Childlike. Pure.

I used to love snow.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry that this one turned out as sad as the last one, but-

Actually, no, I'm not sorry. I didn't put this under humor, even if the first ten or so _were_ funny, it's not filed under humor. Thus, I can make it non humorous.

Personally, I like these serious, introspective ones. They make me think when I write them, and I write for _me_, not for you, as rude as it seems.

Because, really, if I were to write for _you_, there would be no writing. _Period._

So I really like this piece.

But why am I caring what you want or not? After all, I _am_ writing for _me_...

And I'll stop rambling now.

This I _am_ sorry for.


	15. once upon a time

Prompt 15: Sanguine/Excellent

* * *

><p>My hair was red, once.<p>

When I told Mello and Matt, Mello started laughing because he didn't believe me.

Matt said outright that there was no way I was ever a ginger.

I corrected him.

He was right.

I'd never been a redhead, but my hair was once a very sanguine red.

Then, after three transfusions and thirteen stitches on my leg and even more where hair still refuses to grow, the doctors told me I'd make an excellent recovery.

They told me too that I'd have to deal with red because the staining would eventually wash out, but it would stay for a few weeks longer.

Matt and Mello stopped laughing.

I turned and walked away to look at the snow.

* * *

><p>AN: SYMBOLISM IN THIS ONE! THE SNOW!

...Ahem, anyway, hope this wasn't too implicitly violent for anyone, don't want to lose the sparse number of readers I have anyway...

OH! I decided to put the title in all lowercase because I felt it gave it a kind of feel of childishness, that innocence that Near lost when he was younger and shtuff.

So... yeah.

Review? Please?


	16. Train Crash

Prompt 16: Kitchen/Football

I'm still not a fan of sports, but once in a while it's refreshing to get up and not think for once. There are few times when this actually occurs.

One such situation is while cooking. I do not have the experience nor a natural gift for cuisine, and so any preparation of food is treated delicately and mindfully. With all this focus on food, I don't have as much mental capacity to spare on other considerations. Between regulation of heat according to the heat pressing outwards from the stove and brushing against my back, and carefully keeping track of time by the frequency of my pulse, as well as cataloguing the correct smell and appearance for the finished product—especially making sure I don't injure myself with the open flames or the knife blades—I really have very little opportunity for my thoughts to stray.

This also happens during many sports. In football, for one, I have to keep tabs on the ball, on my own pulse and breath rate, on the number of steps I take and in which direction, on the trajectory of the kick or pass necessary for a goal, or the running score/foul count in the back of my mind, I don't get the chance to really think at all.

And while I treasure these moments from time to time, Mello happens to hate them because they happen to require that, in regards to people, I notice little about them but for their position.

So while I'm at the stove, carefully simmering tomato sauce until it comes to a slow boil, Matt is slouched at the table and Mello is standing up, but his angry words register as an increasingly loud noise instead of as a question.

Then he comes back behind me as I move to the sink to rinse a package of salad greens.

And so, knowing me for so long, he really shouldn't have been surprised that, when he grabbed my shoulder, I spun around in surprise and nearly slit his throat.

Then in football, he calls my name for a pass. That registers, but then he yells at me for passing to Matt, who is actually open. And that shouting passes in one ear, and registers as background noise and nothing else, because, really, the notion that sounds can pass out the other ear are simply preposterous and unfounded.

Continuing, Mello storms toward me, and I note an opposing player barreling towards me from the other side. So I neatly sidestep the other player, who knocks into Mello instead, and he gets into my face, breaks my calm and focus, I falter, and we lose the game.

Mello should know by now that he should stop trying to get my attention when I wish him not to.

Because he should be appreciative of such moments himself—after all, it's not to his liking either when one of us takes away his comfort chocolate—when he can't distract himself with the confection, he keeps thinking of whatever it was that distressed him at the start.

So why does he insist on disturbing the few moments when I'm not subconsciously considering methods of just making everything _stop_, of making my trains of thought just _end_?

I suppose only time will tell.

Time that I'm counting down with every breath that's spent thinking.

I'm starting to love the culinary arts.

And football.


	17. Congratulations

Prompt 17: Golf/Ribbon

"All you have to do is find the pattern and win according to it," Watari instructed.

I knew by the third minute that we were scoring in the manner of golf, but I kept it to myself until Mello was seconds away from discovering it and he was in the lead.

Then Matt made his move, propelling himself to first, spoke up, and shattered all of my previous misconceptions about his intelligence and motivation.

Matt won a ribbon, the chance to say he'd beat Mello and I, and a priceless picture of Mello and I gaping with our mouths hanging open.

Mello nudged me.

"It's you and me against the world. We attack at dawn."

I looked at him and he grimaced.

"It's more fun when it's Mattie and I against you."

I looked away.

Matt stayed behind for a while after that.


	18. Lucky

Prompt 18: Temple/Exchange

For the winter holiday last year, Watari sent myself, Mello, and Matt to Japan for a foreign-exchange program.

We went to go see a traditional temple and to study the culture.

I prayed for winter to end.

Matt prayed for downtime.

Mello prayed for success.

I prayed for favorable fortune in the coming year.

Matt prayed that his Japanese accent sounded authentic.

Mello preyed on cute girls' wallets.

At the end of the excursion, we were more than ready to get home.

We were snowed in and we missed the train back.

Matt was so occupied with finding a way back to our hosts that he didn't notice the group of teens laughing at and mocking his pronounication.

And Mello found a single seat home and a complimentary bag of high-quality chocolatey confection.

The lucky git.


End file.
